Why Leading With Love In Business, in Life Is Always the Right Decision

How to lead with love AKA ‘follow your heart.’ Now with actionable steps!

2017 is shaping up to be a momentous year…I can feel it. It’s not so much anything concrete that I can pin my finger on, but as they say, change starts within.

I don’t fit in well with people sometimes. And maybe it’s because I’m overly-sensitive, but I have been primed in this way, tool. I think too much. Feel too much. Love too much and have been charged with the arduous task of defending myself, heart, brain, core, ideas, etc. at least in my mind.

I’m discovering this is a good thing after all.

Because every time I have led with love in my life I have never gone wrong.

Consider personal relationships. I finally feel married. I finally understand the gravity and the seriousness and the absolute fragile trust joining two families brings. The question of “Will you be my family? Can I trust you with this most sacred gift to hold it as blessed as I do?” I get it now. What an incredible honor to be seen as worthy.

Consider arguing in personal relationships…when the “But you do this,” “You do that…” phrases are flying, so are the defenses. But…when I lead with love, with my heart that is hurting, that is not allowing me to move forward until I pluck the thorn out, then my body reacts with the vibration of authenticity. Maybe I will never understand your point because I don’t possess your neurons, memories, your hard-wiring, but maybe I just want this dumb fight to be over! And so I move to him and take his hand sometimes, and so he gets up and walks over to me and folds me up like Origami passion in his arms. I am safe again.

I stop questioning what I want to do and I do it because I know he is safe.

I stop questioning what I need to do in my heart because to deny it is death to me.

Death to passion and everything I am responsible to bring to the world.

That I am supposed to offer to the world to help people.

The reason we are all here: PURPOSE.

I lead with love in business by protecting my interests and intentions. And it doesn’t have to be emotional. Because as I have told my kids, and this is so funny, because they parrot it back to me, these young, fresh-faced adults…”Emotions don’t belong in business.”

Actions do.

Take action on what you need to do. Lead with the love in your heart to uncover your mission and to stay the course you are supposed to be on.

But how can you do this when everything gets all jumbled up inside?

1. Recognize you are tangled. Try to identify your gut. What is the first thing you think of in terms of resolution? In terms of action? Do that! Don’t write down a list of pros and cons. Don’t overanalyze. Just take the action your heart wants. Open up the vibration to receive what will naturally come from that action over the remorse of losing an opportunity. Have faith in yourself and everything you have accomplished in the past.

If you can’t get a clear vision, flip a coin. Drill your decision down to two options. Before you flip the coin, choose what each decision will represent, heads or tails. Pick a side. Flip. And then…this is the important part…don’t stick with the side it wound up on. Think about how you feel about the outcome. Are you disappointed in the side it landed on? That is your gut telling you to choose the other option. Are you excited that the coin landed a particular way? That is again, your gut, celebrating happenstance with you. Go with it! The idea is not to have a totally irrelevant method coercing you into making your decision, but to gauge how each decision makes you feel through a trick offering no mental input or energy from you.

2. Ignore your fear, which is a gut-derailer. We make decisions when we are afraid and a lot of times, those decisions ignore our deeper purpose. When we can remove the emotional barriers blocking our true path, we will find the road we are supposed to be on. Are you afraid to make a business decision due to money concerns? Scale down the importance of money. Tell yourself that you are capable and can find ways to take care of yourself and your family, because you can and you have! So, that is a minimal consideration. Are you afraid to rock the boat in your relationship and share what is really on your mind? A situation that is bristling under your skin? In a non-confrontational way, share your feelings. Tell your partner what has you concerned and why. Deeper even, bore into the fear that is holding you back from speaking and sharing. What is at stake for you? When you illuminate fears, they seem to shrink right in front of us, and when they do, we can decide a better solution (one that is more likely to work.)

3. Breathe. Your fears, situations, surprises, none of it is going to kill you. Every day, you have woken up, a survivor of trauma, of LIFE. Fear will NEVER kill you…but it tries to convince you that it can. What helps me is to write through it. Nothing fancy, but I ask myself this question, literally, I type it out: “Okay, Hilary, what are you really afraid of about this situation?” And then, without a filter, I answer the shit out of it. I might be afraid showing my partner my true feelings will drive a wedge between us; I might be afraid I will prove the adage that I am disposable; I might be afraid I will jeopardize a chance at growth or money; I might be afraid of anger coming from someone else or conflict. Life is a confidence game and when we stare down our terrors in their face, we win.

Now, after I identify my fears, I can make a plan. Okay, I am afraid to say something…what happens if I don’t? What scenario feels better? Refer to number one above then—your gut.

4. Pay attention to what you are supposed to do. When I talk to people about this, and write about it, I refer to “doing what comes easily.” And this doesn’t mean being lazy, or refusing to work, it means….what opportunities are finding you? Pay close attention to the emails that come into your box that you never solicited. The words in those emails inviting you to a chance meeting, a chance project. The content of those emails filling up your heart with hope and JOY. That is where you are supposed to operate, my friend. Right in that sweet spot. When you acknowledge and take action on the bonuses that find you and you swell with the idea of all the potential loaded in those emails, in that phone call or text, answer the call. Embrace the gift of your purpose finding you. The more that you do it, the more that you allow an open mind and heart to receive success and emotional and financial prosperity, the sharper your frequency becomes, because you are finally in tune with identifying everything that is meant for you. That’s exciting!

Confidence in yourself, in your past triumphs, in your importance and value as a person can move you through the darker alleys of your life. And when you combine those initiatives with the choice to lead from your heart, as if your heart has a red piece of yarn tied to it and the other end is looped to the unknown, and you follow your heart string, grabbing the coarse fiber with your fingers and allowing it to guide you, you will never go wrong. You will have no regrets.